Jayne Pomplas is a rare force in modern music, a virtuosic fiddle player, arresting vocalist, and fearless composer who operates entirely in a league of her own, effortlessly bridging the raw, earthy roots of Irish traditional music and folk song with boundary-pushing contemporary experimental soundscapes. Known for performances that balance razor-sharp technical mastery with deeply magnetic intimacy, she has crafted a sonic signature that is entirely her own. When she dropped her eleven-song masterpiece, “This Is How The World Ends”, on September 11th, she didn’t just release a record; she handed us a cinematic, deeply vulnerable map of the human soul. Let’s dive in.
The album opens with the deceptively cozy “Sweeter Than Honey”, but begins with a burst of pizzicato violin strings that suddenly and unexpectedly pop into focus just before a lush, sustained acoustic chord blooms out of nowhere. Lyrically, the song ventures straight into the perilous landscape of embarking upon a relationship while burdened by the weight of previous intuition; it delves into the way that affection can become a weaponized tool for dealing with anxiety, veiling insecurities behind saccharine sweetness. The song is right. Nine out of ten times, a person who works double time to make sure people perceive as good or kind or sweet is a person whose real character is the complete opposite. Musically, Pomplas creates an incredible contrast, her vocals airy yet dangerously close to a whisper, layered beneath the tension of her vocals, and set against a minimal arrangement of thumping double bass and a weeping fiddle line that seems to circle round and round. The effect is powerful and disorienting; it traps the listener in intimacy, as though confidences are being whispered to your ear in the shadows.
In stark contrast, “Hit Single” begins with the dry metallic sound of a metronome clacking four times with a completely deadpan tone played on a banjo directly into the right earpiece, immediately matched by a vicious electric guitar riff that sounds harsh and cynical from its very first note. Here, the song tells us a story of a woman with big dreams and moves into the big city, planning to take over the town. Vocally, Pomplas takes off his comfort zone established by the previous song and gives an incredibly biting and sarcastic performance with clipped pronunciation and mocking harmonies directed at the dirty political games of the music business which crushes the dreams of wide eyed does. The song is a spin of Ariana Grande’s song “Petal”, one could call them cousins because of the similar subject matter. In instrumentation terms, it all centers around a driving and oppressive drumming loop combined with harsh feedback-like sliding violin phrases.
The ambiance is set for an introspective, rugged experience, as the opening passage in “Farewell to the Corncrake0 features the gradual intrusion of the instruments through a long, solo passage of a violin featuring windy howls across arid brush followed by a slowly creeping, lamenting multi-tracked humming before giving way to the instrumentation. In terms of composition, Pomplas incorporates the structure of traditional folk music; she delivers the vocals in her aching, crystal-clear soprano reaching the highest octaves without vibrato while backed only by the harmonium and its drone and a crying violin.
From that quiet grief, “Stars and Stripes”blasts into action with a soft malady that immediately turns into an epic cascade of acoustics and strings, with lots of arpeggios. Lyrically, the song tears apart disillusionment with the concept of national identity. It breaks down how the childhood wonder about waving flags degenerates into disillusionment when confronted with hypocrisy and history. Vocally, there is a lot of forceful, theatrical irony from Pomplas singing with complex rhythmic variations and a chorus of mocking voices. Instrumentally, the dynamics of the song build up between a marching rhythm section and crazy soaring violin lines that seem to be bursting in a smoky sky like fireworks.
As we move to a more mystical water world, the opening of “The Lonesome Boatman” begins with a single bowed fiddle note of a low register that continues forever and seems like the low horn of the ship traveling through the dense mist of the river. With regard to performance. Pomplas goes back to a wordless performance , similar to that of a siren for the intro of this song and then delivers the verses in a chilling deadpan manner.
The emotional center of the recording is achieved with “Mother Superior”, which starts with the stark, reverential mouth percussion chord of a true violin building out of pure silence, along with the slow, deliberate beat. Here the theme itself is harsh and unforgiving, dealing with someone who has been wrapped around someone’s fingers and is being control by the person. It is here that Pomplas unleashes her greatest vocal achievement of the recording, an almost pious and trembling confession which slowly builds until it bursts into a full-blown, operatic scream of total freedom and rage. Musically, the song rises from an almost hushed funeral march into a full orchestral onslaught including layered fiddle melodies, floor Toms and harmony vocals as if breaking stained glass.
Breaking all of that heaviness down is the song “Bending the Curtain, comes a quick onset of the fuzzy, warm tones of a crisp and smart violin melody, with its rhythmic plundering of folk music. Musically, the song employs conversational singing with a breathy approach that exudes urban night time casualness, seamlessly navigating asymmetrical jazz-folk rhythms. As for instrumentation, it employs an upright bass playing a sleazy nocturnal rhythm, with a fiddle accompanying the vocal lines like the playful ghost of the singer.
“Whiskey Sours” begins a soft piano melody that matches the equally soft vocals. In terms of thematic content, the theme gets right into the heart of romantic limerence and late-night delusions. The song explores the bittersweet hangover experience after one wakes up to the harsh reality that a relationship has been purely made up of lies and deceptions. Pomplas’ singing style reveals an aching and whiskey-riddled pain, her high-pitched voice breaking in places in an uncut and authentic fashion. From a musical standpoint, the combination of smoky lounge-jazz guitar and a crying fiddle in alt-country music forms a magnificent fusion of genres, engulfing the audience in melancholic blissfulness.
The tone takes a definite turn for the darker side as “Backwater Side”opens with the ominous sound effect of a thunderous rainstorm on a tin roof, accompanied by a somber, minor-key drone performed on the lowest string of a slow fiddle. The lyrics take us straight into tales of generations-old mysteries, eerie legends, and the bones hidden in the river beds of the countryside, serving up an almost documentary-style folk noir tale about things that cannot be kept submerged. Vocal-wise, Pomplas brings out a more ominous tone in her voice, as if she is speaking to you in hushed tones to warn you of a deadly route ahead through the forest by the light of a candle flame.
As the album draws to a close, “Ninety Nine” emerges with an unexpected burst of frenzied, high-energy acoustic rhythm section that is reminiscent of a runaway train roaring down the hill under gravity. From a lyrical perspective, the song is an ode to this race against time; it comes from the fear of being part of the “27 club” where death seems to take away your chance at greatness too soon. Vocal-wise, Pomplas delivers the song with intense urgency and speed in a stream of consciousness that is full of youthful vigor. Musically, Ninety Nine is an exceptional song that displays the power of contemporary fiddle-infused rock, featuring frenzied, lightning-fast strings somewhere in between traditional Irish reel and indie rock.
The album ends with There Is A Time, and opens with total silence before the sound of one, single, warm chord of accordion plays and then the comforting finger-picked acoustic guitar pattern follows. The idea conveys the philosophical culmination of the whole album of the chaotic period of growing up, contemplation about acceptance, circular nature of life and death and finding inner peace in the process of transitions happening in this world. The vocals of Pomplas sound soft and motherly with no ironic tones or bitter notes at all, as if the artist is singing from her inner peace gained in the result of a long war. The musicality goes back to its roots, and all the sounds that accompany the melody are just a plain wood, strings and vocals.
Listening to This Is How The World Ends is not so much about turning on the music but about reading the diary entries of my own life, which I wasn’t even aware someone else was keeping. For those of us who have ever faced the reality of being in our late twenties and suddenly understood how quickly time was passing us by, this album is truly a lifeline. Jayne Pomplas has somehow captured in a bottle the precise mixture that is growing up and has turned it into stories that are shockingly familiar and true.
Clearly just by the masterful way this album is sequenced, this is no ordinary collection of random songs put together, but rather an incredibly deliberate exploration of the circle of life itself in which we break, rage and ultimately are able to find ourselves healed in the end. At twenty-seven, on the morning after, she woke up with a profound realization that she had spent years living a cautious life, afraid to dream and dictated by fears. It was a full-on existential crisis that felt like the moment in which I realized how much time had been wasted and in one fell swoop, she needed to live a lifetime in the next five minutes. To hear the same intense, manic, all-consuming feeling brought to life in Pomplas’ music was like receiving a shock, this was her mind waking up.
She has written an absolutely stunning discovery in these ten songs, establishing herself as a true prodigy who writes and sings like a mature, wise man as well as someone who can understand her in a way no one else ever could. There are not many albums that will surprise and impress the listener this much because of their honesty and their sonic perfection. In her eleven tracks, Jayne has opened up her heart in a way that few other musicians ever have, and she deserves to be at the top of the world for that reason. She has completely captivated me with her genius, and I cannot wait to see how the rest of the world realizes just how brilliant her music is.
Stream the “This Is How the World Ends” album on Spotify
Follow Jayne Pomplas here and her socials: Instagram, YouTube, Bandcamp
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